Following Wednesday's 3-2 loss to St. Louis, the Pirates dropped their 82nd game this season.
Regardless of what happens the rest of the season, Pittsburgh will finish below .500 for the 19th consecutive year.
In the aforementioned stretch of bad baseball, the Buccos' closest 79 wins in 1997 and 78 in 1999.
Maybe it's because that was the first year I started paying close attention to baseball, it's caused me to be more cynical as each year passes, but I really believe the 1999 team had the best chance of breaking the mark, even though the '97 squad had 0ne more win.
In '99, Jason Kendall missed more than half the season, Brian Giles and Ed Sprague went down for part of the season, but they still managed to put it together. They had some decent power, strong pitching and I really think they could've done it had Kendall not went down.
I know, coulda, woulda, shoulda, but that was a decent team. I still remember Warren Morris' strong rookie campaign. He sure fell off the face of the Earth. Plus, Todd Richie's 15 wins, Kris Benson before Anna, or maybe after, but what a crazy lady, and I use that term loosley, and Frankie Cordova.
Al Martin wasn't bad, but they just couldn't quite put it together. That team wasn't the best fielding club, either.
I was optimistic after that, but the team went from bad to worse. They lost 100 games the year PNC Park opened, has some decent clubs in 2004 and 2005, hosted an All-Star game in 2006 and had some individual honors like Nate McClouth winning a gold glove, a batting champion in Freddy Sanchez and Jason Bay winning the rookie of the year award.
Even with all that, Pittsburgh's hasn't seen winning baseball since '92.
They have improved this year, but I don't think it will matter. You have to realize that pre-July 28, the pitching was out of its mind, but the rest of the components weren't there.
I don't think the pitchers will perform like that next year. They are trying to keep the core guys, but outside Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker and maybe Jose Tabata, I don't think it's good enough.
I say it will be a long time before we see winning baseball in Pittsburgh. I may be drawing social security by then.
Eh, maybe not.
Posted this in wrong thread, sorry. SHould be on this one.
ReplyDeleteA historic event has happened today involving the PBC. And yet not ONE thread about record-setting consecutive losing season 19 over at the Tavern. These idiots have their collective heads so far up Nuttings ass that the stark reality of 19 isn't even mentioned.
These idiots are so delusional that it is beyond belief. Even the PBC OFFICIAL webpage has an article on it (Loss dashes Bucs' hope of .500 season)
Seriously if even the PBC OFFCIAL SITE can mention it, how much crack IS kipper and crew smoking?
Well, the truth is, we all knew this would happen.
ReplyDeleteEven if we HOPED this team would maintain it's super human pace, we all KNEW what the real results was going to be. At least I can say that speaking for myself and many others who closely follow the Bucs.
It is really hard to be a Pirates fan. 19 straight years is beyond ridiculous and so are the people who cried that weekday attendance when the Bucs were in first place for 10 minutes wasn't a nightly sellout.
The Bucs are near the bottom in payroll and performance every single season and attendance is comparable to those figures. The Bucs are 22nd this year in AVG attendance and 19th in overall attendance. There are 21 teams with a better record than the Bucs and 1 tied.
Bottom line is this was just another average year for a well below average franchise.
15-1
ReplyDeleteThis team is playing worse than last year's team.
There is no reason to be optimistic about next season.
#20 here we come.